The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Officials get to know the problems faced by disabled

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 03, 2006
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Officials get to know the problems faced by disabled

Staff Reporter

NGOs pleased with response of transport corporations to their demand

CHECKING OUT: Anjlee Agarwal of Samarthya at the Shivajinagar bus stand in Bangalore. Members of Samarthya are in the city to conduct an access audit of the city's transit system. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

Bangalore: At a workshop on "Access audit training" in Bangalore, conducted by the International NGO ActionAid, government officials from the city's transport corporations were asked to experience the handicaps that a person with disability faces in his or her daily life.

As Jithendranath, chief of Corporate Communications, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation, navigated the venue of the workshop in a borrowed wheelchair, he pointed out that he quickly became aware of how hostile his environment had become. The light switches were placed far too high, as was the public telephone, and there was almost no way he could manoeuvre his wheelchair in the bathroom. And finally, while trying to climb a ramp — which was a few inches too steep — his wheelchair overturned, just about sparing him of serious injury.

Mr. Jithendranath pointed out that Bangalore's Metro was committed to incorporating the standards of "universal design" into its structural planning.

The concept of universal design for public spaces, benefits not only persons with disabilities, but anybody who might have special needs, whether children, the elderly or pregnant women, say Anjlee Agarwal and Sanjeev Sachdeva, founders of Samarthya, a Delhi-based centre for "the promotion of a barrier-free environment for disabled persons."

Their campaign has already borne fruit in Delhi, where the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has incorporated their suggestions on accessibility, including resting spaces and colour-coded signage.

The Delhi Transport Commission (DTC) will have seven hundred low-floor buses by 2007, and Samarthya's model bus shelter at Delhi's Hauz Khas will be reproduced in over 200 shelters in the city.

In Bangalore recently to conduct an access audit of the city's transit system, Ms. Agarwal and Mr. Sachdeva, both wheelchair users, say they were pleasantly surprised at their first stop, the Shivajinagar bus station. "Being a relatively new bus station, there are a fair number of features that can be appreciated," says Ms Agarwal. "There was a ramp subway, for instance, which many older bus stands do not have, the signage is fairly good as it is visible from afar, and the phone booth has enough leg and knee space," she says.

On the flip side, however, the ramps do not have handrails for support, or adequate landing space; it was impossible, for instance, to turn the wheelchair at corners.

The inquiry counter was 1050 mm high, hardly accessible to a wheelchair user or a child for that matter. The vertical and horizontal gap was too great between the platform and the first step of the bus.

Samarthya and ActionAid, who have been in talks with the officials of Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation and the Bangalore Metro on accessibility are pleased with the response.

BMTC has promised to bring in low-floor Volvo buses. Twenty-five low-floor buses already operate on Bangalore's roads. The Bangalore Metro is set to "out do" its Delhi counterpart.

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